Perceived degree of facial happiness and the role of the particular stimuli

• The purpose of the present study was to elucidate further Pixton’s and colleagues (2007, 2008, 2009) results with a between-group study. Two groups (happy, angry) viewed pictures of facial expressions (Tottenham et al., 2009) with three presentation times (12.50, 18.75, 25.00 ms) and completed a detection (Part 1) and a rating (Part 2) task. In Part 1, participants answered “yes” if they thought the face was happy (happy-group) or angry (angry-group and “no” if not. In Part 2, they rated each face stimulus on each of three scales (angriness, happiness, emotionality). The d′ values were higher for the happy-face group than for the angry-face group for the two longest times. “Neutral” faces were not rated equally neutral by the different groups. Together with Pixton and colleagues’ results, when investigating the detectability of emotions, account must be taken of the particular stimuli used, which has now been demonstrated in a between-groups and a within-participants study.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

discriminability

face perception

emotion

signal detection

Fechner Day

Psychology

Psykologi

Psychology

psykologi

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